• A coupe of months ago, I purchased a new TV: A 46 inches Samsung LCD!  It truly rocks!
• I have a new job! After 1.5 years of exciting working on the Messenger team, I am moving to Office as an SDE on the InfoPath team.  I am looking forward to contributing to the Office 14 release!
• Maybe our soccer team will have a winning record this season - keeping my fingers crossed .
• We had a crazy windstorm in Seattle a few weeks ago! My place was out of power for a whole week.  Thankfully, I was able to crash at my place for a night, Aaron's for another, Niladri's for another, building 36 for another... You get the idea. Thank you both for letting me crash!
• Game mania! Jerome acquired an XBox 360 and a Wii for himself, and a Play Station 3 for his brother. Needless to say, I have seen my share of Gears of Wars, Wii Sports, Halo 2, ...
• We expanded our circle of friends! Welcome Ayman, Luke, Navaz and Sarah.

Ok, that's enough ramblings. I may update this post later.

Happy Holidays everybody .

Peace Out!

• I finally hooked up the webcam I have in my office, and tried it out with our latest Messenger bits. I have to say I am impressed  I was able to "video chat" with my dad, my uncle, Chris, Nawaz... full screen. Good times  Props to Aleks, Raghu and everyone else who works on the Audio/Video team: it truly rocks! I am even considering purchasing a LifeCam (or just steal one of Alek's, who claims he has 3 in his office ).
• One of the Beta testers forwarded me this link about Live Cards. Definitely a great idea: you can, for free, order Windows Live Messenger themed business cards. You can include your IM adress, Spaces address, ... If I was still living in Europe, I would definitely order some!
• I may be way late on this one, but a great link to add to your RSS readers to keep up to date with Windows Live Blogs: http://msreadr.com/.
• I attended a very interesting class last week (perks of working at Microsoft = free training ), called "Design Patterns". It was even more interesting to meet up with devs from several different teams at Microsoft, and get their prespective on how to design software "well" - both for managed and unmanaged apps. Too bad it was only 2 days short. Anyways, I am eager to apply what I have learned .
• The project I have been working on since Sharing Folders is coming along pretty well. This is one of the first projects I have had to work on that involves coordinating with 5 different teams. Fun and chaotic at the same time, but coming along surely .
• As far as work stuff goes, I have wrapped up loose ends from last week, mainly adding some more code to our test client to finish up the last bits and pieces of functionality it was missing. It's pretty exciting to have everything in place now . These past couple of weeks have been really exciting: I can't remember the last time I designed and coded so much stuff back to back. Anyways, my upcoming tasks include doing security work on this project, and maybe starting work on another project that's kicking off. 
• WORLD CUP!!!! I can't believe France tied Switzerland . I even wore my Zidane shirt to work last week for good luck! Speaking of soccer, I made a bet with Josh that France would make it further than USA. Hopefully France will finish top 2 of its group, and US won't . How do I keep up with the World Cup while at work?
• The Microsoft Soccer Socreboard installed on my machines
• The RedWest Cafeteria: Props to Microsoft on this one! Our cafeteria in RedWest has a big screen projector hooked up to braodcast the World Cup games.
• Couple of fun events at work: we have an outing this Friday at a Billards place. Hopefully I can kick some butt at pool . There is also a Messenger 8.0 party next Thursday - not sure what or where yet.
• I have been playing in a soccer league with a few of my co-workers every Monday night. It's been a lot of fun, and is definitely helping my cardio! Hopefully, if it ever stops raining, I can hit the tennis courts this week and last more than 1/2 hr .

Anyways, that's about it for ramblings...

 

Peace Out!

• A couple of weeks ago, the guys from LiveSide came to visit. It was great meeting Chris, Harrison, and Kip (sorry I missed you Brandon L!). It also gave me the opportunity to meet up with other Bloggers. Definitely good times, and I am looking forward to their next visit 
• Messenger 8.0 is almost out, you could say it's basically sticking its nose out of the door (feels like we have shipped so many Betas ). This will be the first product I have shipped at Microsoft! Go SHARING!
• Speaking of firsts: my 1 year anniversaty at Microsoft is coming up -> 06/06/06. How freaky is that!  I will be bringing 1 pound of M&Ms at work... or mabye Skittles...
• For the past couple of weeks, I have slowly moved away from Sharing Folders work and started working on another project: let's call it project X. It has definitely been a lot of fun, especially since I am coding a lot more stuff than on sDrive (and of course, I just finished up a test client app for project X, just because I love to slap .Net UIs on top of everything ). Another great thing about this project is the number of teams involved: A LOT! It may lead to confusions at times, but on the plus side, it is great to interact and meet individuals from other teams. And it is always a plus to learn about new projects and technologies at the same time.
• On a personal note, life's been filled with activities:
• I recently watched MI III, X-Men III, Da Vinci Code... Decent flicks.
• I went to watch the Cirque Du Soleil. That was definitely interesting: I don't think I am too much of an "artsy" type.
• I started playing tennis again! The weather's been great, and I have found a few good people to hit with.
• I attended my first Women's Basketball Game. Now that was AWESOME! I am now officially a STORMS fan and will be attending more games this summer.
• A few morale events at work, that included a BBQ at Marty's house, Box Seats at the Mariners game, and a really fun and entertaining Putt Putt game.
• I hosted a really last minute "Cook-In" party for Memorial Day: not bad of a turn out though, and I even bought balloons.

Anyways, enough rambling... I am looking forward to the summer, hopefully it will bring nice and sunny weather!

 

I will try to post more frequent updates.

 

Peace Out!

 

• We traded in our CRTs for LCDs at work. The really nice DELL ones that flip in all directions. WOHOO
• Must be Christmas or something, because we also received Windows Live Skylight Team shirts.
• A wind storm hit the Seattle area, and knocked out trees, power, cars and more on its way.
• Jerome made me COUSCOUS!!!
• We are having a Super Bowl party tomorrow. Go SEAHAWKS! Turns out a Quebecois plays for the Seahawks, so I have someone to cheer for. Go JP!

I have uploaded some pics for your viewing pleasure.

Peace Out!

 + =

What a crazy week end! I shopped around more than I ever have: an entire 5 hours. I hit Office Max, Best Buy, Costco, Target, CompUSA, Fred Mayer's ... I purchased a desk, a coffee table (turned out to be too small ), tons of apartment thinggies... My credit card has turned blue ! And today, I just spent hours building my table and desk. My handes are bleeding... Glad that's over...

Anyways, I have been playing around with the MSN Messenger APIs at work. It's pretty embarrassing, but I was unaware that MSN Messenger had PUBLIC APIs! That's right, you can code up your little add-ins too. I will start posting about the public APIs shortly (I have to double check what's *bloggable* first). Assuming our public APIs are really public, expect code snippets (probably in C++ and C#) on how to send messages, set some preferences, change your PSM... Anything you would like to know really! Just ask away .

Peace Out!

A whole week without Blogging! Yeah well, that's what happens when you start work and become busy . But, for your viewing pleasure, here is a list of random life updates:

• I finally signed up to the Pro Club. Nice place! Maybe I will catch Steve B. playing basketball one of these days.
• I am particpating in MS pick up soccer games on the main campus. I am no Zidane, but I am not bad either. Now if only I was in some sort of shape .
• I made it over to the C# team's building! Nice people, and I even walked out with on of their cool "C# is hiring" posters .
• Building 35 remains my favorite: Ping Pong, Pool and Foozball tables. Heaven . Props to the WebData SQL XML team, they know how to treat their peeps.
  
• NO MORE HOCKEY LOCK OUT!!
• The MSN Spaces building is pretty tight too.
• I learned how to play Poker. And I won the whole game .
• I almost have all my apartment furnished!

Yeah, content-less post! I am tired, sorry!

 

Peace Out!

• Ketchup Chips.
• Aeros.
• Caramilk.
• And I will meet some fellow Canadian softies eh!

I treated myself to a new gadget today. I am not much of a gadget person, so this is my "Congrats on your new job gift". Since all the cool MS people have an Audiovox smart phone, I went ahead and purchased one too . And note to anyone living in the Redmond area: Do not purchase anything from the Cingular store at the Redmond Town Center. They don't know how to set up the phones .

I really like it so far: I have Messenger, Web and Email access from my phone. That's heaven to me. Maybe it's also a bad thing!  I am still learning the tricks of mobile devices. I have never owned one before.

Now, question for the geeks out there. What's a good RSS reader for mobile devices? I noticed that Bloglines has a free one available. I tried it out and it's actually really nice and fast. The only problem is that my entire Blog Roll is on NewsGator and I didn't see any "Import OPML" capability. I think NewsGator's mobile reader requires a subscription or something. I might just end up switching my Blog Roll back to Bloglines!

Also, I am looking for tennis players (and a tennis facility) in the Redmond area. Don't worry too much about the level, as I told someone today, I am extremely out of shape. If you can put 10 balls over the net I will be happy to play with you. Just send me an email or comment here. I am not sure how many "Redmond" people read this, but it's worth a shot.

Peace Out!

Thought Of The Day: Guys, refrain from reading if the "t" word makes you uncomfortable. My question: Why don't they sell Tylenol near tampons?  That would make everyone's life so much easier...

Anyways, continuing on my procrastination phase, I want to change my Blog's description. That proverb I have there now isn't all that. This is what I have so far:

1. Don't mess with my RSS...
2. Once you Blog, you can't stop!
3. Self-confessed Blogaholic.
4. The ramblings of a Blogaholic tennis player. (thanks Jerome)
5. Inès - 2 tablespoons of technology added to 1 cup of tennis. (thanks Tod)
6. I am still trying to take a Bloggging vacation.

Got any other good ones for me to use? Cast your vote and thanks for helping me procrastinate .

I apologize to my English readers, but this will be a rant in my mother tongue. Don't worry, you are not missing much, just a personal rant. And the fact that you might not understand this might be a good thing .

Maintenant que l'excitation d'avoir passe les entrevues et obtenu un nouveau poste a diminue, je realise que je vais demenager a Seattle dans quelques jours. C'est un peu triste. Ma famille et moi meme avons fait tout une bout de chemain ensemble. Alors partir comme ca n'est pas chose facile. Quand je suis partie au College, c'etait different. Je savais que j'y allais temporairement: 4 ou 5 ans au maximum. Maintenant? Je ne sais pas trop combien de temps j'y serais. Ca dependra de beaucoup de choses. Mais bon, ca m'attriste. Je laisse ma famille pour demenager a l'autre bout du continent. C'est quelque chose que je n'avais pas vraiment realise avec tous les evenements des quelques derniers mois.

Pourquoi ai-ce que j'ecris ca ici? Parce qu'ecrire, tout comme la musique, c'est therapeutique! C'est un peu effrayant d'embarquer dans une nouvelle aventure: nouvelle ville, nouvelle compagnie, nouvelle job. Au moins je parle beaucoup mieux anglais et je connais la societe americaine un peu mieux que quand j'ai quitte Montreal pour aller etudier a l'Universite americaine. Et je connais au moins une personne a Seattle, c'est deja un debut.

En tout cas, ce qui me console, c'est que ma famille viendra me visiter souvent j'espere. Ce genre d'opportunite ne se presente pas souvent, alors il faut la saisir, a contre coeur!

A plus!

I won't be around this space much in the next few weeks (if you care). I know, I know. The last time I said that, I ended up posting almost everyday and I coded an OPML to HTML Converter . This time, it's a real "forced" Blogging Vacation! I have a crazy schedule ahead of me (again, read only if you care ):

• Thursday, May 19th: Drive to Montreal.
• Friday, May 20th: Drive back to Ottawa.
• Saturday, May 21th: My "goodbye" PARTY .
• Monday, May 23th: Movers are coming to pick up my stuff.
• Tuesday, May 24th: Day trip to Toronto to pick up some paper work.
• Friday, May 27th: Movers are coming to pick up my car.
• Sunday, May 29th: Leave Ottawa  to go to Seattle .
• Sunday May 29th - June 5th: Play a tourist in Seattle.
• Jerome will be my tour guide!
• I will visit the infamous Building 19 for the 3rd time... as a NON CANDIDATE!
• So, what else is there to do in Seattle?
• Monday June 6th: First day at Microsoft!
• Look for me on campus. I will be the one looking dazed and confused  as I am searching for Buildings with my map (kind of like the first few days in College!).
• As someone pointed out to me the last time I visited: "MSN Buildings? That's easy. Just follow the Butterflies!".

I am not coming out of my Blogging vacation unless:

• The US invades Canada .
• Microsoft joins the Eclipse Foundation or Visual Studio and Eclipse partner .
• The Canadian hockey team goes back in time and beats the Czechs for the Gold Medal .

It has been fun "hanging out" in the MSN Spaces world. See you guys in a few weeks!

UPDATE: Blogging vacation? Who am I kidding . Just expect less posts...

Peace Out!

Again, I am sorry everyone to spam your RSS Aggregators. As I previously mentioned, I wanted to delete my old Blog, but it saddened me to lose all my previous posts (and comments ), so I have imported them to this Blog. Look for old posts in the "OldBlog" category.

That was quite a painful process! It looks like I have lost my cool code snippets colors . I just have to resign myself to the fact that all the code snippets I post in this Blog will be color-less.. I will also have to go back to fix links, formatting and other things too. LOTS to do ...

I know it's probably a Blogging 101 rule: Never delete a Blog! But I had to do it . I could not stand being scattered all over the place like that! One Blog is enough for me.

Anyways, rest in peace Blogger Blog!

Funny side effect: How to obtain over 300 page views in less than an hour? Post over 20 Blog entries in an hour !

Peace Out!

I plan on "killing" my old Blog . If only I could access it as we speak. It seems down at the moment. Reminds me why I left Blogger...  

Why kill it you ask? I don't know... I guess I like to clean up after myself, and consolidate too!

So whenever Blogger starts working again, I will be "importing" some old posts to this space. Don't be freaked out by the amount of posts in the next couple of hours. They are "old"...

Question for the MSN Spaces Experts (hint - Overdo): Can I "alter" a post's timestamp? I know it sounds weird, but I really hope I can do that..

Peace Out!

I grew up in Montreal (well, my teenage years at least). Anytime I can, I go back to visit my family and hang out with some high school friends. I love Montreal! It is a crazy fast paced city. When I first came back from Blacksburg, Montreal freaked me out. Blacksburg is really SLOW paced. For example, drivers stop a mile away to let you cross. In Montreal, you better find an opening and sprint . Anyways, some week end highlights:

• A GIANT library was opened a couple of days ago. I am not much of a library person, but this one is HUGE! You can rent out movies, CDs, books... Anything goes .
• Downtown Montreal ROCKS! Especially since the weather has been nicer. Everyone's out .
• There was a nice improvised Hip Hop concert by the subway. The kids were not too bad either.
• I also witnessed a pro Marijuana walk. That was definitely interesting...
• DIVERSITY! You find people from all over the place, different styles, cultures, ages... It is great .
• The good old subway! Nothing better than having people running around like chickens trying to catch the trains, buses and more. I don't do that anymore. Blacksburg has taken that 'fast-paced' life out of me .

All in all, a great week end! I will miss Montreal...

Peace Out!

First of all, thank you everyone for the NICE comments on my GuestBook! It’s extremely flattering. I also noticed that people pick up random bits and pieces of information about me from my previous Blogs. Well let me make it easy for everyone and create the “everyone is doing it” “About Me” post! Just a brief overview for the curious...

I always find it hard to answer the simple question: “Where are you from?”. Do I pick the last city I lived in? The city I grew up in? The city I went to College in? This is how I usually break it down (by age interval for now, until I get older, then I will have to think of something else):

UPDATE: Apparently, I only spent 5 years in Algeria. Thanks dad for pointing it out! Silly, I can't remember where I spent the first 5 years of my life .

0 - 1: I was born in Alger, Algeria. If you don’t know your geography, that’s in Northern Africa.

1 - 6: I spent those 5 years in Nancy, France. I don't remember much of it...

6 – 10: Back to Boumerdes, Algeria. The fun days in the sun, chillin’ by the Mediterranean. Ah, the good old days. If you look at the picture included in this post, that's the building my family and I lived in, on the 5th floor. An earthquake in the summer of 2003 destroyed our apartment.

10 – 12: My family and I moved to Pau, France. A short 2 years, uneventful. Mainly went to school, played some tennis, met some people…

12 – 17: My family and I moved to Montreal, Canada. Ah, the teenage years! That’s where I started playing tennis a bit more seriously. I trained, played provincial, national and international tournaments.

17 – 22: I somehow ended up in Blacksburg, Virginia to attend Virginia Tech! The college days were awesome. I met a lot of interesting people, played lots of tennis for the Hokies, traveled, did the Computer Science thing and graduated with Bachelors and Masters degrees.

22 – Now: I moved to Ottawa, Canada. I bummed around for a semester and then I started working on the Eclipse Team at the IBM Ottawa lab. I remained on the User Interface Team for about a year. My proudest professional achievement to date: Becoming an Eclipse Committer!

I am moving to Seattle in a few weeks to start work!

Feel free to view and/or sign DA BOOK!

Peace Out!

Congratulations Jerome for passing your Masters THESIS! I am glad your hard work paid off. And you were absolutely right:

"I am almost done with the work" never really means "almost done"...

Peace Out!

My Blog Roll, HTML provided by a neat tool I coded up. Thanks to Overdo for the feature ideas!

Just enter your OPML link, press the HTML button, copy the generated HTML code and paste it into your Blog post (using Firefox, you should be able to edit HTML directly if you are using MSN Spaces).

You can also find my *most* up to date Blog Roll here.

• Aggregators
•  .NET Developers
•  Google Blog
•  LonghornBlogs.com
•  MSDN Blogs
•  Planet Eclipse
•  The latest blogs from your friends at OfficeZealot.com
•  Weblogs @ ASP.NET
• Interesting
• Apple
•  Applepeels
•  David Sobotta's Radio Weblog
•  Ocracoke Waves
•  View from the Mountain
•  Bug Bash
• Fun Spaces
•  Jin van Weerd_Tennis And Photography
• Geeks
•  Adam Bosworth's Weblog
•  Chris Pirillo
•  Jeremy Zawodny's blog
•  Joel on Software
•  Micro Persuasion
•  Sam Ruby
•  Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger
•  Scripting News
•  The Chris Pirillo Show
• MSN (MSFT)
•  Always Thinking
•  Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
•  just Another SDE
•  Torres Talking
•  venkatna's WebLog
• MSN Messenger
•  IMlogic Threat Center
•  Messenger Blog
•  Messenger Support Space
•  Mike's Space
•  Most Recent KBs for MSN Messenger
•  msnfanatic
•  Overdo's Land of Nothingness
• People
•  ~ryanlowe/blog
•  Andre: Teching It Easy
•  cld.blog-city.com
•  Cyberspace People Watcher
•  Integendeel!
•  Microsophist
•  Mini-Microsoft
•  Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters
•  TriXie
•  Technical Careers @ Microsoft
• Technologies
• Eclipse
•  Eclipse News
• Other
•  MSDN Just Published
•  MSDN: Coding 4 Fun
•  MSN Sandbox
•  Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows RSS
• Visual Studio
•  .NET4Office
•  Most Recent KBs for Microsoft Visual Studio
•  Most Recent KBs for Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System
•  Rusty Miller's blog
•  scooblog by josh ledgard
•  Somasegar's WebLog
• Testing
•  Five Testers From VC
•  Kintan's
•  Maybe it is a blog...
•  Resolved To Test
•  The Braidy Tester
• Mine
•  Inès' Crib
• News
• Google
•  InsideGoogle
• Headlines
•  CBC | Canadian News
•  CBC | Sports News
•  CBC | Top Stories News
•  CBC | World News
•  CNN.com
•  MSNBC.com: Entertainment
•  MSNBC.com: International News
•  MSNBC.com: News
• MS
•  InsideMicrosoft
•  Microsoft Monitor
•  Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley
•  seattlepi.com Microsoft Blog
•  The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog
• Sports
•  ESPN.com
•  MSNBC.com: Sports
•  SI.com
• Tech
•  CNET News.com
•  Engadget
•  eWEEK Technology News
•  eWEEK.com Messaging and Collaboration
•  Journals.ars
•  Slashdot:
•  Wired News
• Peeps
•  *Mangobeckology*
•  Banal Long-winded Oprahization of Garbage.
•  BeefyLog
•  Bees Are On The What Now?
•  Edgardo Vega's Blog
•  Jerome on Technology
•  Jon's Ramblings
•  ls.comp
•  mangobeck's Xanga Site
•  NervousFishblog
•  Rambling: A Piece of My Thoughts
•  RudyPicardo.com
•  So What's Going on with Tom?
•  stickmanica.ca
•  Technicalworx
•  Tod Creasey's Eclipse Blog
•  Wes' Puzzling Blog
• Virginia Tech
•  hokiesports.com
•  VT Campus News
•  VT Campus Notices
•  VT Featured Sites
• WatchLists
•  [Technorati] eclipse
•  [Technorati] http://209.200.124.64/SneakPeak/RSS_Reader.aspx
•  [Technorati] Ins' Crib
•  [Technorati] msn messenger
•  [Technorati] visual studio

Peace Out!

Everybody's doing it... so here we go

I just recently discovered the "Statistics" functionality in Spaces, and it turns out SOME people actually visit this CRIB! So if you happen to drop by my Space, no matter how you got here or where you came from, leave me something nice!

Peace Out!